Shivangi Sharma and Pragya Jain
(11.03.2020)
A German Education Union Gewerkschaft Erziehung Wissenschaft (GEW) in an online publication has called for greater attention to be paid at gender perspective while shaping the future of digital education. It wants a stronger gender perspective added to the digital strategy of the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (KMK), combining pedagogical competencies with gender-aware skills.
The union has proposed that the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (KMK) update its 2017 strategy, “Education in the digital world”, from a gender perspective. For example, pedagogical competences in digital education should be combined with gender competences. According to GEW, the federal government, too, must become active and take up the issue of gender in its “Quality Offensive in Teacher Education”.
Addressing the issue of gender stereotypes, Frauke Gutzkow, GEW board member for gender policy said that gender stereotyping starts at the stage of school and can be dealt with bringing more awareness around the topic of gender. He suggests that pedagogical competences in digital education should be combined with gender perspective.
The lower hand of women due to gender stereotyping has resulted in closing of numerous opportunities to them. For example, the Information Technology industry is highly male dominated, girls and women hardly find female identification figures in technical professions. This prevents them from orienting themselves professionally in this segment of the labour market. Until and unless digital education is not reformed by having a gender equitable way, the profession might not see any progressive changes and the gender gap will sustain, leaving the digital future at the behest of only one gender.
Gutzkow said that learning aids and pedagogical-didactic concepts are needed to introduce all gender equally to the natural sciences and digital technologies. In addition, gender images in social media should be a topic in schools since stereotypes and clichés have a massive impact there.
